This course will consider the construction of caring and helping in the structuring of social relations. What does helping entail? How does power operate in the velvet glove? What, if anything, lies beyond paternalism? How does social change occur? Competing perspectives on paternalism from within social and political theory will be considered as vehicles for tracing power dynamics in a survey of U.S. social formations related to family, gender, sexuality, race, labor, class, medicine, criminal justice, religion, environmentalism, and international relations.

Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia BookstoreFriedrich Nietzsche, GENEALOGY OF MORALSSharon Marcus, FIGHTING BODIES, FIGHTING WORDSRalph Ellison, THE WORLD AND THE JUGIvan Illich, TO HELL WITH GOOD INTENTIONSShulamith Firestone, DOWN WITH CHILDHOODetc.

Examination and Assignments: Reading journals and major research paper.